‘So, in order to change the world, do you reckon you can use any methods?’
‘Of course you can.’
‘ Any methods? I mean, even violence and terrorism?’
Tom O’Brien’s lips set in a hard line. ‘ Particularly violence and terrorism.’
‘You think the end justifies the means?’
‘It must do! If you stop and think of the violence that man’s committed against the natural world, then a bit of necessary violence against man to restore the balance… well, it’s a small price to pay.’
‘And what kind of violence are you talking about? Sabotage? Bombings?’
‘Yes.’
‘Killing people?’
‘Oh yes. When it’s necessary,’ Tom O’Brien replied with the quiet righteousness of the fanatic.
Chapter Fourteen
The boy’s pale blue eyes suddenly darted sideways. Hope and yearning glowed in his face.
Mrs Pargeter followed his gaze through the cafe’s steamed-up window to the street outside. Three girls passed by, tantalizingly slowly. Their strutting movements and the shortness of their skirts identified them as practitioners of the art for which King’s Cross has become famous.
The hope had gone from Tom O’Brien’s face as he looked back. Odd, was Mrs Pargeter’s initial thought; why should a boy as good-looking as Tom waste his time gazing at prostitutes? Then light dawned.
‘Going back to Jenny…’ she began delicately. ‘I want to know more about her.’
The interrogation was interrupted by the arrival of her steaming mound of All-Day Breakfast, swimming in enough fat to light the average Anglo-Saxon mead-hall for a decade. Mrs Pargeter looked at the plate with relish, sliced off a triangle of fried bread, which she loaded with tomato and beans and ate, before repeating, ‘Yes, I want to know more about Jenny…’
Tom O’Brien looked truculent and suspicious. ‘Why?’
‘Because we’re both trying to find her. If we pool our information, the chances of succeeding’ll be that much better.’
He thought about this for a moment, before deciding in favour of co-operation. ‘OK. What do you want to know?’
‘You haven’t seen her since the last week of last term?’
‘No.’
‘But you didn’t have a row about anything just before she left?’
‘Certainly not. We were very close.’
‘No arguments at all?’
‘No. Not what you’d call arguments.’
‘What would you call them then?’ asked Truffler bluntly. Mrs Pargeter took the opportunity of his interposition to load up and despatch another triangle of fried bread.
‘Well…’ Tom considered Truffler’s question. ‘Well, I suppose you’d call them disagreements. Disagreements about priorities.’
Mrs Pargeter continued her softer approach. ‘What kind of priorities?’
‘Money, mostly. How we should spend any money we’d got. Not that we had any, of course.’
‘In what way did you disagree about that?’
‘Well, I thought we should devote anything we had to the cause.. ’
‘The environment?’
He nodded, but Mrs Pargeter had to prompt him to continue. ‘And what did Jenny want to spend the money on?’
‘She was… sort of…’ He swallowed before the shamefaced confession. ‘Deep down Jenny’s a very conventional person, and I suppose, because she’s grown up with her parents always being hard-up and that, she’s a great believer in…’ He could hardly bring himself to shape the alien word. ‘ Saving.’
‘Ah. What did she want to save for?’
‘Oh…’ He looked embarrassed. ‘Sort of… you know… traditional things…’
‘Like… getting married?’ Mrs Pargeter suggested lightly.
His blush told her that she had scored a direct hit. ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ she said.
‘Maybe not, but…’ His words petered out. Mrs Pargeter could sympathize with his problem. To have a girlfriend of such mundane ambitions must have been a serious threat to the street credibility of a self-appointed anarchist like Tom O’Brien.
Time to move the enquiry on. Reluctantly deferring another mouthful of her All-Day Breakfast, Mrs Pargeter asked, ‘And since that last week of term you haven’t seen Jenny or heard from her?’
‘Not directly, no.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I did ring her parents once. Her old man managed to stay civil long enough to tell me she’d phoned them a couple of days before. But since then…’
‘In fact,’ said Truffler Mason, who could be surprisingly sensitive at times, ‘I happen to know she’s kept in touch with her parents right through. They last heard from her just before the university term started.’
Tom O’Brien seemed relieved by the news. Mrs Pargeter felt terrible about the other news that the young man might shortly have to hear.
‘She didn’t give any indication of where she was?’ he asked eagerly.
‘No. They got the impression she was doing some kind of holiday job, but they didn’t know what or where.’
‘That would be in character,’ Tom mused.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Mrs Pargeter.
‘Jenny’s very proud. Neither of us had got any money, so it would have been in character for her to go off and get a job. No way would she ever ask for anything from anyone else — least of all from her parents. She knew how little they’d got. I’d hear her on the phone telling them how easily she was managing on her grant — which was a load of crap. She didn’t want them to be worried. I think she sometimes even sent them money that she certainly couldn’t afford.’
‘What’s odd about the situation,’ Mrs Pargeter ruminated, ‘is not that Jenny should have got a job… but that she shouldn’t have told you that she was getting one…’ The boy nodded in downcast agreement. ‘Can you think of any reasons why she might not have told you?’
His reply was drawn out of him reluctantly. ‘Only the one.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘That she didn’t think I’d approve of the work she was doing.’
Mrs Pargeter understood immediately. She looked out of the window at a miniskirted girl brazenly chatting up a tourist in an anorak. ‘That’s why you’re here, Tom, isn’t it? You’re afraid Jenny might have come down here to make money?’
‘I couldn’t think of anything else,’ he mumbled. ‘I had to look for her. I had to start somewhere.’
‘So you’ve been round here, watching the girls come and go, for how long…?’
‘I don’t know… Two weeks… three weeks?’ The confession had released some tension in him. He looked suddenly haggard with exhaustion.
‘Where are you living?’
‘Sleeping on someone’s floor.’
‘Whereabouts?’
She only got a shrug by way of answer.
‘And that’s why you haven’t gone back to Cambridge?’
‘I can’t. I can’t go back till I find Jenny.’ He looked suddenly very young and vulnerable.
‘But you mustn’t ruin your life and your education for-’
Mrs Pargeter never got the chance to finish her sentence. Tom O’Brien’s attention had been caught by another group of miniskirted girls hurrying past the cafe window. ‘I must go!’ he blurted. Then, showing his good upbringing, he added from the door, ‘Are you sure you don’t mind paying for the lunch?’
Truffler gestured acquiescence and the boy was gone. ‘Shall I go after him, Mrs Pargeter?’
She shook her head and speared a sausage. ‘No point. I think we’ve got all we can from him. And, anyway, Truffler, if you’ve found him once, I’m sure you can…’
The detective’s nod of confidence made the rest of her sentence redundant.
Mrs Pargeter finished her mouthful of sausage in reflective mood. ‘Poor kid. He’s clearly deeply in love with her.’
‘Hm…’
‘Or was deeply in love with her. You know what we’ve got to do next, don’t you, Truffler?’
He probably did, but was polite enough to respect the rhetorical nature of her question.
‘We’ve got to make certain that the dead girl I saw really was Jenny Hargreaves.’
Truffler Mason nodded, his conjecture proved correct.